Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 16:29:34 EDT
Subject: FESTIVAL EVICTS "MICHIGAN 8" OVER "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL"
From: owner-action@gpac.org
GenderPAC
212-645-2686
gpac@gpac.org
www.gpac.org
Action@GPAC
Special Online Edition: August 14, 2000
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TAKE ACTION! TAKE ACTION! TAKE ACTION!
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'MICHIGAN EIGHT' EVICTED OVER FESTIVAL'S
NEW 'DON'T ASK DON'T TELL' GENDER POLICY
Struggle Shifts from Transwomen to Young Activists
[HART, MI : 12 Aug 00] EIGHT YOUNG LESBIAN
attendees were evicted from the Michigan Womyn's
Music Festival (MWMF) this Saturday evening after they
refused to meet the Festival's "womyn-born womyn only"
policy. The eight were members of an ad-hoc Chicago
group called the "Camp Trans Planning Committee" and
the Boston and Chicago chapters of the Lesbian Avengers.
More than 60 gender activists from these groups plus
members of Transexual Menace, supportive attendees,
and renowned activist Dana Rivers gathered across the
road from the Festival this year to do outreach and
education on what they viewed as a discriminatory
policy being unfairly applied.
Said one, "Half the women in there are butch, boy, or,
or FTM identified and wouldn't be able to say they were
'womyn-born womyn' if asked."
Past evictions had focused narrowly on transgender
women and the eight's expulsion marks the first time the
"womyn-born womyn only" policy has been used against
young lesbians, Avengers and gender-variant women.
It was widely viewed by most observers as turning a new
page in the escalating conflict over the policy's application.
As thousands of attendees looked on during dinner in
the Festival's huge dining area, the young activists held
aloft signs declaring themselves a variety of identities,
including "boy," "FTM," "intersex", "drag queen," and
"transwoman." When they called for diners to join them in a
public show of support, more than three hundred stepped
forward to stand with them for almost an hour before
Festival Security arrived to evict them.
Security escorted the eight to the Main Gate, cut off their
attendance wristbands, refused their request for refunds,
and expelled them from the grounds.
Their action was a direct challenge to Festival owner Lisa
Vogel's latest attempt to clarify the policy widely criticized as
vague and misleading: a flier handed out at the entrance
which threatened that any attendee who "self-declared"
as an FTM or MTF transexual or otherwise not being
"a womyn-born womyn" would be refused a ticket and
face involuntary expulsion.
The new statement was viewed by many as amounting to
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and indeed, at noon on Friday as four
police officers apparently summoned by the Festival watched
on amid scores of attendees, one transgender women who
openly identified herself was denied entrance while several
others who did not identify themselves were allowed to buy
tickets and enter. By prior agreement, none were among
those who held signs and risked eviction.
But all were from among sixty mostly-young gender activists with
names like Casey, Gunner, Butch and Jack who variously identified
as boyz, andros, trannie boys, lesbian, bi, FTM, girlz, boychick,
femme, stone-butch, or simply "queer" who held a series of
workshops and discussion groups on the "Don't Ask Don't Tell"
gender policy. This year's "Camp Trans" culminated in a
live music show with lights, sound, and stage set up by
Chicago-based "Camp Trans Planning Committee"
coordinator Simon Fisher and his crew.
The Festival's first expulsion occurred in 1991 when
attendee Nancy Burkholder and a friend were both
forcibly evicted after she identified herself in a workshop as
a transgender woman.
Since then, in 1993, '94, and '99 gender activists, Avengers and
members of Transexual Menace have camped out on public property
across from the Festival's Main Gate to hold "Camp Trans," this
year more inclusively also called "GenderCamp 2000."
Said one activist, "Vogel's policy towards transgenders is now
the same as the US military's towards homosexuals.
But 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' only works when the target group
collaborates by remaining silent. Well, we aren't silent.
We don't identify as 'womyn-born womyn' -- we don't know
what it even means or why it should be used against
our trannie friends."
Stated GenderPAC Executive Director, Riki Wilchins, "Young dykes
and gender-ambiguous lesbians are exploding 'woman' into rich,
messy, complex identities that their mothers -- who began this
Festival 25 years ago -- never imagined. They have become the
new cutting edge of gender in the queer movement."
---------------------------------
Contact the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. Tell them
what you think of their explusion of young lesbian activists,
Avengers, and genderqueer women under their new
"Don't Ask Don't Tell" gender policy.
Write or call:
Ms. Lisa Vogel
WWTMC
PO Box 22
Walhalla, MI 49458
(231) 757-4766
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